Muppetational

My brother gave me the absolute coolest birthday gift on the planet: a gift card to FAO Schwarz to make a Muppet Whatnot. They have this awesome online muppet generator, and you can choose all of the parts. After making countless online muppets, I finally decided what I wanted and placed my order. To be honest, I think I ended up with the same exact combination I tried my first time through the generator.

A few days went by, and then Karl emailed me at work to say that a muppet-sized box had arrived and was waiting on our kitchen table. I could not wait to go home!

I have always loved the Muppets. Can you tell by the poster hanging in our kitchen? There's the box! Who could ever guess that something as fun as a muppet would be inside that ordinary-looking cardboard box?



If you look closely at the poster, you'll see a photo stuck in the lower left-hand corner of the frame. It's a picture of me, age two, with that exact Muppet poster hanging by my high chair. It came in a National Geographic Kids magazine, and I loved to feed all those open-mouthed muppets. That's what I'm doing in this picture-- making muppet food. After a while, the poster got so caked with food and play-doh that it had to be thrown away, but I found a replacement on eBay a couple of years ago.

Anyway, back to the box. I pulled out the contents...

Hello, Muppet!

I couldn't resist posing for a few photos with this charmer!

Thank you, Elsworth! You're the best!

Knitting Olympics: Finish Line!

Here's the finished hedgehog, ready for a long nap!

Off to bed...

Knitting Olympics: Coming Together!

Here's the little guy with his head and body stuffed and attached...

Now he's got arms!

Hooray for legs and feet! In this pattern, the slippers are sewn to the legs. If I were to make this again, I would try to figure out a way to make feet with removable slippers.



What would a hedgehog be without spines?!



All sewn together and ready to get dressed!

Knitting Olympics Update

Here are all of the parts (minus the hot water bottle), ready to be sewn together!

Knitting Olympics Update

The Winter Olympics are moving along quickly, and I'm trying to keep up the pace with my Knitting Olympics project! Here it is so far. The yellow piece on the needles is the first of two bedroom slippers.



I'm concerned that I might not have the right type of eyes. I have googly eyes, but the pattern calls for plain black plastic ones. I'm going to try the googly ones out and see how ridiculous they look. I can handle minimal ridiculousness, especially if it means one less trip to Michael's.

Just a tiny lie

"What are you knitting?" asked the nice lady on the bus this morning.

"A baby blanket," I lied.

It was just so much easier than saying, "I'm knitting a bathrobe for a hedgehog."

Knitting Olympics Update

Let the games begin! I started knitting my little hedgehog on Friday, to coincide with the Opening Ceremonies. And I really surprised myself by getting a lot done! In the photo above (I apologize for the brown-on-brown...I never claimed to be a photographer), you can see the hedgehog's body, head, two arms, two legs, and one ear. I had another ear but I'm afraid it's long gone now. Oh well, the ears take about nine seconds each to knit, so I'm not too concerned. Last night I started the bathrobe, which is the baby blue piece you see on the green needles. I'm trying to decide if I want to do a variety of colors for the robe or just keep it light blue. Fortunately, I've got some time to decide, since it'll be a few days before I get to the potential color change part.

I'll keep you posted on the progress as my knitting needles and I race to the finish!